POHORELICE

POHORELICE (Czech Pohořelice; Ger. Pohrlitz), village in S. Moravia, Czech Republic. It had one of the most ancient Jewish communities in Moravia, and according to legend, the oldest. Although the earliest known documentary evidence for the existence of a Jewish settlement in Pohorelice dates from 1490, a Jewish community apparently already existed there at the beginning of the tenth century. At the close of the 18th century about 500 Jews lived in Pohorelice. From 1849 (officially from 1862) until the dissolution of the Austrian Empire in 1918, a local Jewish political authority also existed. From 1847 to 1918 the community supported a Jewish elementary school whose language of instruction was German. In 1930 the community numbered 277. The majority perished in the Holocaust. A transit camp for Jewish prisoners from Hungary existed in the town in 1944–45 from where they were sent to Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen. A synagogue built in 1854–55 was demolished by the Nazis. The cemetery was likewise destroyed; however, after the war it was restored. The Jewish community was not renewed. Berthold *Feiwel was born in Pohorelice.